It's baffling, in an awkward way, the changes that have happened in the United States in the last few
years.

I haven't been there* since the Spring of 2000. What I have is the news, and reports that I get from people. I don't know much, really, and really mostly only "what I read in the papers."

I've experienced  in spite of the fact that I am geographically removed from the place where I grew up, and have therefore a certain greater freedom to express my opinion  an absolute blank daft inability to write about ... .